Gems of Distinguished People 241
Pope
Julius II., in 1500, owned a diamond on which was engraved the figure
of a friar by one Ambrosius Caradossa; this is one of the few noted
examples of diamond sculpture.
The
first French woman to lead fashion as a wearer of diamonds for personal
ornaments is said to have been Agnes Sorrel, famous in the time of
Charles VII. Subsequently, under Francis I., extravagance in this
particular in French society reached its climax, and the Luxus or
Sumptuary Laws, in the reign of Charles IX. and Henry IV., were drafted
to repress this form of extravagance.
The
late Earl Dudley owned one of the several large and world-famous
diamonds emanating from the diamond mines of South Africa; this stone
was first famous as " The Star of South Africa "; it wras then the size of a small walnut, when in the rough, and weighed 83 1/2 carats; cutting reduced it to 46 1/2 carats.
The
melodrama of gem history is contributed to by the record of Mohammed
Ghori, the real founder of the Mohammedan dominion in India, whose
death discovered in his treasury precious stones weighing four hundred
pounds, including a great number of diamonds of vast but inestimable value; this hoard of mineral 16
